It is Tour de France, Not Tour de Lance

It is that time again. Tomorrow, July 4th, 199 cyclist will attempt to ride into sports history by arriving in Paris in three weeks with the best time. I am looking forward to a great race, and I think the organizers have put some things in place to make it an exciting race. How ever, I am really tired of people asking if Lance Armstrong can win this one. And it is not that I have anything against Lance. He is a cycling legend, and he is doing great work with his Livestrong Foundation, and I an respect that he is using his celebrity to bring attention to a cause he believes in. But I can't see him winning this Tour, for a couple of reasons:

• He has not raced in a grand tour in about four years. As seen in the Giro D'Italia, he needs some time to comeback.
• He is riding on a team that is fielding three other GC contenders. There are too many cooks in that kitchen, and not enough people to do the grunt work in my opinion. That will damge the hopes of all four of those riders. There are other great riders who will seize on that advantage. As much as it does not seem so to many people, this really is a team sport.

But to hear the media talk, you would wonder why the other riders are even bothering to show up. And that does grate on me. While watching the Giro coverage, I was contemplating a new drinking game where you had to do a shot everytime they said "Lance", but that is too much booze for me. It is out of control. I worry that the Tour coverage will be the same. But I do like that he brings attention to cycling in the US. See my dillema? If only there was some sort of happy medium.

I personally would love to see Lance expand his legend in other ways. Winning another tour just kind of makes him a one trick pony. I would love to see him train to win the other two grand tours, and maybe even get a US grand tour going. And I would really like to see him go for olympic gold. That might just be pipe dreaming though.

So you have a huge field of riders to pick from, so pick a rider, and cheer him on. You can even pick Lance if you want.